A Thinking Street Photography Site
Stand at a corner and look confused.
Fumble with my camera long enough and someone will walk past.
I’ll look a bit lost and confused and frown at my camera.
I wasn’t holding the camera to my eye.
Another favourite activity: aim at the window.
And let people get in my way.
I’ve come to appreciate photographs that look like they were taken accidentally.
Street photography is an art that requires artlessness.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
Must we have people in street photography?
Or is the mere suggestion of human presence enough?
I’ve grown to appreciate the poetry of things.
So as to be on the lookout for stories to tell.
There’s a poetics of space here.
There’s a story of workmanship here waiting to be told.
What sort of obstruction is being prohibited? Are the owners of those chairs obstructing access to the door prohibiting obstructions to the chairs? Isn’t the sign itself obstructing access to those chairs?
Work, work, work.
The labour of mobility.
So that we know the weight of things.
The signpost of a neighbourhood.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
Hong Kong people work very hard.
You could attribute it to culture.
Or you could attribute it to the nature of an economy that drives its people.
We are our work.
Work teaches us to be.
To do otherwise is a privilege most can’t afford.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
We do our own thing.
We do it easily – this art of immersion within ourselves.
We close down.
Read ourselves.
And this makes a life.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
These are poses we adopt.
We pause.
We think.
Should I?
I want! I want!
Do I need this?
We have an expertise.
We need a poultice.
I need this.
I want this.
Yum.
Buying, after all, is an art we’re good at.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Kodak BW400CN
A vision of the night.
There’s usually nothing to see.
Still, we try.
It’s a time for reflection.
We try to think.
We sit.
And rest.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Ilford XP2 400
The geometry keeps changing.
Hong Kong is a good place to be a flaneur.
Take a step and the view changes itself.
Lots to absorb.
You could stand at the same spot.
The landscape will change very quickly.
It’s easy to enjoy the view.
You seek out order to square the circles.
Hong Kong will come to you.
And so will the rest of the world.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Ilford XP2 400
I’m fascinated by what you could see when coming down the Mid-Levels Escalator at Central in Hong Kong.
You could see lots of small businesses, restaurants and shops.
You could also see unruly leaves and branches against grey concrete buildings.
They’re part of human activity.
Things happen, though they don’t always announce themselves.
Life is understated sometimes.
At other times, it is in your face.
This is how concrete lives.
How we live with concrete.
The unruly beauty of nature and concrete.
We can’t help but look again and again.
Camera: Leica M6
Lens: Voigtlander Nokton Classic 35mm f/1.4 SC
Film: Ilford XP2 400
Wallace Stevens: “You have a blue guitar,/ You do not play things as they are.”
I suppose the whole point of the visual arts is to get us to see things as they otherwise are.
And perhaps be unlikely.
Wallace Stevens: “Things as they are/ Are changed upon the blue guitar.”
This is not a bicycle.
This is not a ladder.
These are not sacks waiting to be moved.
Things as they are not are directions and lines of force.
Things as they are not are relationships between lines, textures, and light.
With things as they are not, we learn the background of things.
Camera: Spotmatic F
Lens: Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 35mm F 3.5
Film: Fujifilm Superia Venus 800
Hong Kong Lucida 